


Thursday, the Fifth of July (ttoi kink_meme edit)

by duckodeath



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: F/M, Julius makes tea, Nicola has complicated Malcolm feelings, Post-Goolding Inquiry, Written before I saw 407, passing reference to suicide, ttoi kink_meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:49:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckodeath/pseuds/duckodeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-406 AU</p>
<p>The day after the Goolding Inquiry, Julius needs Nicola's help dealing with Malcolm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thursday, the Fifth of July (ttoi kink_meme edit)

**Author's Note:**

> Written last year for ttoi kink_meme. The prompt was _Sex, screaming, comfort or a conversation. Or something else. JUST SOMETHING._
> 
> Because this is the kind of thing that bothers me: In real life, the weather in London on 5 July 2012 was chilly and rainy. Not so much here. Let's just say that's because this story takes place in the same _TTOI_ universe where the sun is completely up and shining at 5:45am in January as seen in _Spinners and Losers_. In _that_ universe, it was hot and dry on July 5th.
> 
> Contains references to suicide, possibly inconsistent Britishness, definite comma abuse, Julius taking care of people, off-screen Steve Fleming being a perv, and I hope all of the actual elements of the prompt, but not in the same order.

Nicola told herself every day during the inquiry that it was not her fault. Malcolm had brought it all on himself. Maybe she had not been the _best_ leader of the opposition, but fuck the press, she done the best she could. Maybe her leadership _had_ been an accident, but pardon me, let's review history. Let's see who was responsible for that accident. _Twice_ she'd tried to leave, and twice Malcolm wouldn't let her go. Not when she wanted to resign after the mess at Ella's school (something else he was _completely_ responsible for the fucker), not when he'd stuck his beaky nose in it and talked her out of going to America. He'd made her leader. He'd made her life a living hell. He'd made her start the inquiry. He'd made her resign. He'd insisted on showing off in front of that smarmy condescending dickhead Dan Miller when she tried to get it all called off and look where they were now.  
  
It was entirely Malcolm's fault. He wanted politics to be war, he invaded fucking Poland in the first place, he was the one that made everything a zero sum game that took no prisoners with a scorched earth policy and every other stupid fucking adolescent boy war cliché. It was his own fault if he'd spent his entire career dodging crisis after crisis -- and how many of them had he caused because he always had to win? - always outrunning the consequences to his actions no matter who got it in the neck as long as it wasn't him, pretending that juggling broken jars of acid and live grenades while standing on a tiny melting ice cube over a pit of burning lava would never end up with him drowning in the lava with acid raining down and grenades and a live fucking atomic bomb about to detonate right over his head.  
  
He wanted everyone to hate him. He'd said it often enough. It would be easy to hate him. She should hate him. But you know what?  Fuck you, Malcolm. Hating you would be too easy. I won't do it. You want me to hate you, and that's why I won't.  
  
***  
  
Malcolm sat on a lichen covered stone bench in a patch of sunlight. The bench was in a garden. The garden belonged to Julius Nicholson.  
  
It was the day after Malcolm's final disastrous appearance in front of the inquiry. Nicola had been alone in her empty house. Thanks to the hacks camped out front, James had finally - and with truly staggering levels of passive-aggressiveness the fucking tosser -- taken the children to his sister's house leaving her in peace and quiet to sit with a completely blank mind drinking cup after cup of decaf coffee. This was a crisis. Sod the lemon zinger. Her mobile rang. Calls had been coming in day and night since the beginning of the inquiry and she'd ignored almost all of them, but not when she saw it was Julius. He wouldn't say anything specific, he merely suggested if she could find time in her schedule -- anyone else she would have suspected of having a go at her, because aside from the inquiry, there was precisely fuck all on her schedule which everyone knew, but this was Julius and he would _never_ be so rude -- perhaps she might consider dropping by his house sometime soon, but only if it were convenient, and only if she just by happenstance found herself in the vicinity of his postal code. From the degree of circumlocution and qualifications she knew it had to be absolutely urgent.

When she said, "Christ, Julius what is it?" with a distinct edge of panic in her voice, there was a long pause and then he'd said, with just the suggestion of a sigh in his reedy voice, "He's being very difficult. Maybe he will speak with you."  
  
Julius didn't specify the _he_ , but it could really be one person. Her house was empty. She didn't have to explain anything to anyone. She left by the back gate and went in search of a taxi.  
  
Now she was watching Malcolm from Julius's kitchen window. In the bright July sun, sitting in a open necked striped shirt with a collar that looked two sizes too big, his grey face upturned to absorb the sun's rays like a battle worn tom-cat, he looked so much older than she had ever seen him before. Older and smaller. Diminished. She thought she should be happy to see him suffering after everything he'd done to her. After everything he'd done to everyone else. But she wasn't. Seeing him like this gave her no pleasure whatsoever. Just a horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Julius gave very little away with his face, but she could tell he was upset too. Without actually doing anything, he gave every indication of a man wringing his hands in despair.  
  
She'd never quite understood what it was between the two of them. Everyone knew Malcolm had, on multiple occasions over the years, treated Julius like a chew toy and she'd seen with her own eyes during those horrible minutes when she'd been trapped in horrible Steve Fleming's horrible office, an unwilling witness to Malcolm's sacking, Julius's unabashed delight at Malcolm's comeuppance. She'd already fled when they came to blows (more like a girly slap fight according to Ollie's sources, but still) in the corridor. That would signify a great deal of animosity to any normal person, but then she knew it Julius had single-handedly engineered Malcolm's almost immediate return with not the slightest reference to previous events.

Men made no fucking sense.  
  
Nicola hadn't even asked why Malcolm was at Julius's house, but Julius had still explained in his carefully elliptical way that he had taken the decision to put Malcolm up when he saw the way the inquiry was going. Nicola heard the implied _whether he liked it or not_ as clearly as if Julius had actually said it out loud. Malcolm's own house was, of course, impossible with the hacks camped out front baying for blood. Sam had offered early on, but Malcolm refused point blank to go anywhere near her private life, and anyway she had flatmates. Julius would have nothing to do with the idea of a hotel. Nicola distinctly got the impression he was determined to keep Malcolm from being left alone in any anonymous space for any length of time. She considered that thought from a distance, but did not allow any closer for further examination.  
  
***  
  
Before letting her go out to see Malcolm, Julius insisted she sit down and drink a cup of freshly brewed - loose leaf in an actual fucking _teapot_ for Christ's sake, what was he like? -- achingly sweet milky tea. He clearly believed that was the sort of mental reinforcement she required to deal with Malcolm in his current condition.  
  
Frankly, Nicola would much rather have had a large whiskey or twelve, but it was far easier to let Julius fuss around behind her while she observed Malcolm through the window. She had no idea what she would say to him. She had no idea what he would say to her. When she finished the first cup, Julius already had a second prepared and put a second slice of cake on her plate. She assumed it was a second slice. She had no memory of eating a first one, but she must have, the plate was covered in crumbs. Julius nattered on in the background about tea blends and whether it was better to eat biscuits or cake in the afternoon. She wasn't paying any attention to him, but he wasn't having a conversation. He was just filling the silence with white noise giving her room to think.  
  
She drank four cups of tea. She ate a third slice of cake. She watched Malcolm through the window looking like his own abandoned effigy. Damn Julius for being right. The tea had helped. She felt much more pulled together, like maybe she could deal with this.  
  
Julius opened the door for her. He gave her arm a reassuring squeeze as she passed, but all he said was, "I'll be upstairs, if you need me." The door closed behind her and she could feel Julius watching her progress as she followed the stone pathway to Malcolm's bench, but when she looked over her shoulder he had disappeared.  
  
***  
  
Malcolm still sat there with his face to the sun. His eyes had been closed the entire time she approached. There was no way he could have seen her coming, but when she was close enough to acknowledge in a normal voice he greeted her by name, "Hey, Nicola." His voice was hoarse. He sounded very far away.  
  
"Malcolm. How are --" She trailed off.  Asking him how he was doing was ridiculous.

He answered anyway. "Oh, you know."  He shrugged slightly and tilted his head at the empty space next to him on the bench.  He still hadn't opened his eyes.  "Sit yourself down for a wee while. Enjoy the sunlight. First I've felt in ages. Can actually feel all the skin cancer cells waking up."  
  
Oh, fuck you, Malcolm. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. You don't get to do this. You don't get to turn on your shit fan made from guillotine blades and dull razors and then, when the going gets tough, just disappear into yourself. Not after condemning me for not fighting hard enough. You, Malcolm Tucker, of all the fucking men on this horrible fucking planet are not allowed to give up.  
  
He was also not allowed to make her feel this way. Feel like she couldn't decide whether to take him by the shoulders and shake his rickety, desiccated frame until his bones rattled loose from his skin and bounced all over the ground or fold him up in her arms and promise him she would make everything better. Jesus fuck, what the hell was wrong with her?  
  
She sat down on the bench, careful not to touch him. She couldn't think of anything to say. The silence between them grew. She was listening to the sounds of the garden, to the birds splashing in the fountain, to the leaves rustling, to the faint sound of wind-chimes in the distance. Malcolm shifted beside her, leaning back, stretching out his legs, putting his hands on either side of him on the bench until his right hand almost touched her leg. She tried again:  
  
"Have you - Have the police--?" After his performance yesterday it was inevitable.  
  
He'd obviously been thinking about it too.  
  
"Not yet. But soon I imagine. Very, very soon." He nodded along with the words.  
  
And then it was there, the anger. "Fucking hell, Malcolm! What the fuck is wrong with you? You can't even have a mid-life crisis like a normal person! You could have bought a sodding sports car and start shagging an eighteen year old but you had to do this! What the fuck were you thinking?"  
  
 _A normal person_. How often had he said that to her? And did she enjoy turning it around on him?  
  
No, fuck him sideways, she did not.  
  
Finally, _finally_ , he opened his eyes. Turned his head to point them at her. She felt her stomach drop. His words were his main weapon, but it had always been the intensity of his eyes -- the pants-shitting _glare_ \-- that truly sold the danger. Even after he'd been up all night, even after he'd been up all night over several nights, she had never seen the intensity dimmed. Only strengthened. But now his eyes were glassy and unfocused. If it were any other man she would have thought him drunk, but this was _Malcolm_ , who never touched alcohol. His eyebrows went up slightly and the corners of his mouth lifted a fraction. He knew what she was seeing.  
  
"Oh, I dunno. Just got bored. You weren't getting anything done. Thought I'd move things along. Trying to fuck the government and that."  
  
What was terrible was the complete lack of inflection. The complete lack of malice that should have made _You weren't getting anything done_ feel like he'd shoved a pint glass in her face. Instead he had all the affect of Stephen Hawking's speech synthesiser, if Stephen Hawking's speech synthesiser had been programmed by a Glaswegian. The smoke alarms in her head began to sound.  
  
In that same blank tone, Malcolm said, "Lord Nicholson in there," he indicated the house with a small jerk of his chin, "has got it into his big baldy head I'm going to top myself."  
  
That was the thought she refused to consider. That was why Julius wouldn't let him go to a hotel. "Jesus, Malcolm! Don't even fucking joke about that."  
  
He wasn't listening to her. "I'm not going to by the way." He looked down at his feet. His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Wouldn't do that to my mam anyway."  
  
The smoke alarms got much louder. _Wouldn't do that to my mam_ , was not actually hugely reassuring. If that was the only reason he could come up with not to do it...  
  
Nicola turned until she could put her hands on his knees, pressing down until he looked at her again with his strange dull eyes. "Not just your mother, Malcolm. Listen to me! There are lots of others too."  
  
He held her look for a moment before his gaze drifted off into the distance over her shoulder. "Yeah, well...plenty more who think I should though. He made Sam take away my mobile. Steve Fleming and that recycled cardboard" - she saw him reach for the right word and miss, in and of itself a horrifying sign - "Cliff Lawton must subscribe to the same crap suicide jokes mailing list." He stopped, and then seemed to realise she was still there. Still clutching his knees and showing no signs of letting go until he said something less frightening. He licked his lips and said very softly, "Worried for nothing you know. Like I would ever do anything those fuckers wanted me to do." He looked directly in her eyes. "Yeah? Ok, Nicola?"  
  
If he'd looked away first she would have pulled out her mobile, rung Julius in the house and damned the consequences. She was absolutely certain Julius already had a list of extremely discreet, exquisitely expensive private clinics neatly typed up and pinned to his notice board. And knowing him, already programmed into his speed dial. This was the great advantage of Julius; Malcolm hated private-sector medicine almost more than he hated _Top Gear_ and Julius would take that into consideration not the slightest whit if he thought the situation demanded he make the necessary phone calls.  
  
But Malcolm didn't look away. Just ducked his head slightly and nodded. "I won't Nic'la, really." Did she believe him? She wavered for a moment, but this was not the time to start flailing. She had to make a decision. Yes, she decided, yes, she would.  
  
He shifted his weight and she took that as a signal to let go of his knees. They both moved until they were sitting side by side again, a respectful distance between them. This was why Julius had called her. To get Malcolm to promise not to hurt himself. Because for whatever reason Julius believed Malcolm would say it to her. Stupid fucking Julius with his situational empathy. Stupid fucking Malcolm with his dead eyes. How dare he scare her like this. Deliberately, without looking at him, she reached over and took his hand in hers.  
  
***  
  
They sat in silence for several minutes, each staring out over the garden, watching the ripples in the little pond as Julius's ornamental fish came up for insects. The warm breeze was picking up and the wind-chimes were louder. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Nicola wondered where they were. There was a question coming. Nicola could feel it in the air. Could feel it building up between them. Could feel it in the way Malcolm's thumb, the only part of his body that moved aside from the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, kept touching her wedding ring.  
  
There must have been a church nearby. The bells tolled five times.  
  
As the echo of the last strike faded, Malcolm said, "I'm tired. Going to bed." A pause. She felt the question in the pause, but she was going to make him ask it. His grip on her hand tightened. He swallowed hard again and almost whispered, "Will you come with me then?" He was looking at his feet.  
  
It was beyond presumptuous. Who did he think he was? After everything he'd been responsible for? And he bloody well knew she was married!

Nicola knew that's what she _should_ have been thinking, but what she was actually thinking was that she and James (the fucking tosser) had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for eighteen months. That they hadn't had a civil conversation for much longer than that. That their already bad marriage had gone completely to shit and she didn't really care. That wasn't the issue. There was a different issue: if she was going to do this thing with Malcolm, this almost inevitable thing that made no sense at all but was actually the most obvious thing in the world, it had to be with _Malcolm_ , not the Malcolm-shaped empty vessel currently occupying the space next to her, clenching her hand; who wanted her, but apparently not enough to look at her when he asked.  
  
***  
  
Well, fuck this then. She yanked her hand free. Stood up. Grabbed his shoulders. Shook him. Maybe not hard enough to shake his bones loose, but hard enough to get his attention. "Are you actually in there, Malcolm? Because I'm not going to break my marriage vows with your _fucking zombie corpse_. Only with you. So show yourself, you complete fucking arsehole!"  
  
At the words _zombie corpse_ , he'd given a definite twitch. At _show yourself_ , he'd reached up and put his hands on her forearms. Not grasping, just placing them there, the skin of his palms pressed against her own sun-warmed skin. She stopped shaking him. She was going to give him to the count of twenty. If he didn't look at her in that time she was done. She was going to push him away. She was going to walk back to the house. She was going to tell Julius Malcolm was gone, possibly for good, but had left his body behind in case he could trick someone into giving it a pity fuck. Julius was welcome to indulge Malcolm if that's the sort of thing he enjoyed, but if she wanted that kind of misery she could just go home to her husband.  
  
 _Eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-_  
  
Malcolm looked up. All right, that was a start. But he was going to have to do a lot better than that. She watched his eyes finally focus and brighten. There was still a great emptiness there, an enormous well of sadness and fatigue, but there was also a glint of the humour she always saw when she said something he approved of. For the first time that afternoon, the man behind the eyes was recognizably Malcolm.  
  
His eyebrows had gone all the way up in an exaggerated display of surprise.  
  
"'Fucking zombie corpse'? Yeah, I like that: how it works on several levels." His voice was still husky, but at least it had inflection. His hand, palm down, cut the air, several times, illustrating the levels.  
  
He was there, he was alive. Oh Christ, he was still in there. This is what had been missing. The empty Malcolm she'd been talking to had only spoken with his mouth. Real Malcolm spoke with his entire face. Spoke with his hands chopping and attacked the air. He had been in there the entire time, but he just couldn't be arsed to make the effort to come out until she forced him.  
  
Nicola had spent many fruitless hours of her life telling her children hitting was _always_ wrong. Conflicts could _always_ be resolved with talking. Violence was _never_ the correct answer and, _Josh, hitting Ben is going to hurt you more on the inside than it's going to hurt him on the outside_.  
  
When she shoved Malcolm in the chest hard enough to knock him backwards off the bench right onto the thickly mulched flower bed, the genuine expression of open-mouthed shock on his face very nearly made the endless shit parade of the last two years worthwhile. No wonder the kids never paid any attention to her. They weren't stupid, they knew bollocks when they heard it. _Hurt you more on the inside_ , fuck that. She felt bloody wonderful.  
  
Malcolm started laughing before she did. After that it was easier.  
  
***  
  
 _He has so many faults he should be classified as a geological site of interest_. It was something she'd overheard Ollie say on the phone once, about some backbencher twat. It wasn't even about Malcolm, but it had stuck in Nicola's mind. Because for all his faults, Malcolm had one supreme virtue in the testosterone drenched world they worked in. While he might say the most appalling things to her, insulting her intelligence, dress sense, commitment to the job, husband (not that she disagreed with him, but that was completely not the point), and mental stability, there was a line he never crossed, a line she believed it would never occur to him to cross.  
  
Unlike, for example, that moustached creeper Steve Fleming, Malcolm had never made her feel like she needed a shower after one of their encounters. Or, at least, if she felt like she needed a shower, it was because he'd made her feel like the most useless person in the universe, not because she knew he'd been running a porno starring her through his hideous distorted cartoon sized head. Of the two options, she knew which one she preferred.  
  
That is probably why after a few mojitos she had always found it very easy to kiss Malcolm. To grab his arm, or shoulders, or on one memorable occasion his ears, pull his face all the way down to hers and give him a good snog. He always took it with good humour, would play along for a few seconds before extricating himself gently with a "I'm flattered darlin', who wouldn't be, but what would Mandela say?" which didn't even make sense, but she always liked him more for it. She might not be drunk exactly, but he was completely sober and aside from everything else (because the press, Jesus!) there was no way it would go any further. There was no way it could go any further.  
  
On the nights when she kissed him, Malcolm always took her home. He would sit in the back of the car or taxi with her and keep up a steady stream of nonsense about whatever caught his eye passing by on the street. If her house was dark when they got there he would take her keys from her and open the door for her. He would practically shove her through. He would tell her she was going to feel like shit the next morning while giving her one of his special mock glares, the kind she suspected he usually reserved for small children. He would tell her to _shut the fucking door already, didn't she know what time it was_? She would ignore him and he'd shrug, back away a few steps, turn around, go back to the vehicle. It would drive off. She would close the door.  
  
The next day, the day after that, every day until there were more mojitos and more kisses, everything would be back to normal. Nicola resisting everything he tried to make her do, Malcolm endlessly disappointed in her. She knew he could have turned the kisses into something horrible and ugly he could hurt her with. He never did. That was important.  
  
***  
  
Now they were both on the flower bed. It seemed easier than getting up and there was something absurdly, childishly enjoyable about disturbing Julius's carefully ordered plantings by smashing them flat with their bums. Nicola was beginning to understand why Malcolm could not leave Julius alone.  
  
They were pausing. They were taking a break. Just recovering. Not making any decisions or trying to answer any of the questions between them.  
  
Malcolm was drinking a Fanta. It had been hidden behind the leg of the bench in the shade. Julius must have laid in a supply for him. For all she knew this was one from Julius's own supply. From what she'd observed of his diet, he subsisted almost entirely on sweets and takeaway and probably considered Fanta an adequate substitute for actual fruits and vegetables. Even Malcolm was better than that with his net bags of oranges and piles of satsumas.  
  
Nicola watched Malcolm drink, watched his throat move as he swallowed. His eyes were closed in concentration as he drained the can, his head tilting back more and more exposing the full length of his neck. Malcolm had a ridiculous scrawny neck. It connected his ridiculous pointy head to his ridiculous oddly proportioned body. But could she be sure his body was ridiculous?  
  
Nicola had seen his head almost every day for the past three years. She had seen his throat emerging from various shirts and tops almost every day for the past three years. She had never seen his body. How could it not be ridiculous? Aside from his suit jackets and overcoat, none of his clothes had ever fit him correctly. All of his trousers were too long. His shirts were always untucking themselves. She smiled at the idea, the association of words: his name was Tucker but his shirts were never tucked in.  
  
Tucked also referred to something else. People were tucked into bed. She studied the thought for a moment. Tucker and bed.  
  
Yes, it was still possible.  
  
He must have a ridiculous body.  
  
It didn't really matter, she was sure she would know for sure quite soon.  
  
A gust of air and the wind-chimes in the distance were suddenly louder. Where were they coming from?  
  
***  
  
Malcolm was finished with the can, she could tell he was going to throw it, going to toss it away toward the ivy covered wall in the distance for Julius to be annoyed by later. It was bad enough what they'd done to poor Julius's plants; littering was completely unacceptable.  
  
"Malcolm!" she said in her sternest mum voice. Surprisingly, it worked on him better than it worked on her actual children. She wondered what Malcolm's mother was like. If she was the reason Malcolm with his mouth and his eyes and his hands and his tempting snakey charm could be trusted around women.  
  
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, pretending to be ashamed.  
  
"Nah, you're right. His ladyship has been a real pal. And anyway, I shouldn't fuck up his idyllic fucking wonderland here with all my rubbish."  
  
Nicola was not stupid. She heard the false note in his casual tone. This was Malcolm pretending to fail at subtext. This was Malcolm testing out his sat nav programme for the land of apology, even if he never took the actual journey there. This was not news. She knew Malcolm owed Julius an abject grovelling apology. For fuck's sake, Malcolm owed _her_ an abject grovelling apology. Actually, let's not mince words, when it came to abject grovelling apologies, Malcolm's to do list should pretty much include every living person - not to mention one extremely dead one - in the entire country. Nicola knew that. She knew it was extremely important. She also didn't actually currently give a fuck about it. Not while the other question still hung between them. The question it was finally time to answer.  
  
"Give it to me," she said, holding out her hand for the empty can. He twisted around, balancing on his knees. He stretched over her and placed the can on the bench. They were suddenly very close. He cupped her cheeks in his hands. He didn't say anything, just tilted his head to the side, with his eyebrows raised. His eyes burning. The question was in his whole face. She smiled up at him. He dipped down as if he was going to kiss her, but instead whispered in her ear, "Hey, Nicola."  
  
She reached up between his arms and took his face between her hands. She understood. "Malcolm, is that you?"  
  
His face was completely serious, "Yeah."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. Who would fucking want to pretend to be me right now?"  
  
"Thank you Malcolm, that's lovely. That certainly makes me feel special inside." She was teasing him, she knew exactly what he meant. She watched him replay the words in his head. Catch the meaning and wince theatrically.  
  
"See what a fuck up I am?"  
  
"I was thinking it was proof you really are Malcolm Tucker with his unique brand of inspiring inter-personal charm."  
  
He liked the idea. "Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Malcolm?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Would you please for the love of God and all his fucking puppy dogs shut up already and get on with it?"  
  
He pulled back slightly so she could get the full effect of his grin. Then he dipped down to her ear again whispered "Yeah," pulled back so he could waggle his eyebrows and then finally, finally, finally, kissed her.  
  
Nicola was extremely pleased to find it had been well worth the wait.  
  
***  
  
Nicola's fear of enclosed spaces had bookended their professional working lives.  
  
It was her first overwhelming week at DoSac. He had just said _the really horrible stuff, that's all still about to happen to you_. He stepped into the lift. His total blank incomprehension when she refused to join him. She had said _claustrophobia_. She had said _it's about not being able to get out_. They had still been strangers then.  
  
It was her last overwhelming day as leader. He knew her. He'd known her for three years. He put her into that metal fucking tube she could not escape because he knew her. He put her on that train to Bradford because he knew when she was caught between the terrible awful decision he _had_ to make her make and the panic screaming _GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT_ she would listen to him. She would listen to him and do what he wanted because he knew she trusted him.  
  
She did trust him. She had done what he wanted and almost as soon as it was done, she'd known they were fucked. He had only meant to fuck her, he had succeeded in fucking her, but then his terrible awful choice had turned around and fucked him hardest of all.  
  
The Malcolm who had done that, who had taken her small private weakness, a weakness that was essentially just an extremely strong preference for taking the stairs and automobile transportation, a weakness that really had no relevance to her leadership ability or anything else, who had turned it into a Nicola Murray-destroying shiv, had hated her. How could she have missed it? She knew he was angry with her. She knew he was frustrated with her. How could she have missed he wanted to ruin her and humiliate her in front of the whole world?  
  
She _had_ trusted him. She had trusted him with her career. She had trusted him not to hurt her.  
  
Her career, she didn't know.  In the hours after she left the office, she'd stuffed it into the mental equivalent of the file box she'd carried away from the Norman Shaw Buildings, put a lid on it and deposited it in the furthest reaches of her mind. She could not bear to look at it yet. Maybe she would never look at it. Maybe some things were better left unexamined.  
  
She had trusted him not to hurt her. Maybe she should have known better. Probably she should have. _Of course_ she should have. He had hurt her. He had hurt her when he'd forced her to hurt Ella through his unfeeling miscalculation about the fucking comprehensive. When he'd told her within ten minutes of meeting her she had to choose between her husband and her daughter, she should have told him to go fuck himself. She should have walked away. She should have told him to tell the press to have at James, she would be happy to draft the statement herself.  
  
Instead, she had let him have his way. Ella had been hurt. She had been hurt. Later he had backed down. He had given her his untouched whiskey and told her Ella didn't have to stay at the comp, _we_ would understand if she went to the private school. Ella had gone to the private school and it made a difference, but it really shouldn't have made a difference, because Nicola should have known better than to trust Malcolm after that, but she still did.

She should have known better.  
  
***  
  
The Malcolm she lay next to in Julius's ruined flower bed, with his soft smile and his careful slow kisses and hands beginning a shy tentative exploration of her body over her clothes while she pulled his shirt completely out of his belt so she could run her hands up the bare skin of his back was the same Malcolm who had done those terrible things.  
  
The Malcolm who drank a lukewarm can of Fanta with complete concentration was the same Malcolm. The empty Malcolm sitting with his face to the sun was the same Malcolm. The Malcolm with his increasingly desperate lies, who had been recalled time and time by Lord Goolding, was the same Malcolm. The Malcolm who had spit at her with such furious venom in front of Dan Fucking Miller and his fucking illiterate sign was the same Malcolm. The Malcolm who hated her enough to start the inquiry was the same Malcolm. Every Malcolm was the same Malcolm, every single one, back to the first one she'd met, who had stalked with such authority into her new empty office with the sticky remnents of Hugh Abbot's nameplate still on the door, asking "Is this the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency?"  
  
Every Malcolm was the same Malcolm. And when she took him from Julius's garden under the open sky, full of space and light and air into a room (what room? She didn't yet know), it would be a dim enclosed space with four close walls and a ceiling, and a closed door, and she would not panic. There would be no fear. There would be no sense of impending death. She would take all the Malcolms, who were of course the same Malcolm, into that enclosed space with her and she would not leave until she knew another Malcolm, who was also that same single Malcolm. One with tired, sad, guilty eyes who would have shared pleasure with her and she hoped found a little peace. Who was perhaps a terrible person, but who at least knew how terrible he was.  
  
She wanted to see his ridiculous body. She wanted to touch it. She wanted to feel his weight on her, to feel the minute adjustments as they fit themselves together for the first time before she welcomed him into her body. She wanted to enjoy finding out what rhythm worked best for them when he was inside her. She wanted to know if his eyes would be opened or closed when he came, if he would call her Nicola, Nic'la, Nic'a, darlin' or if he would find a new name altogether. She wanted him to know she knew all the Malcolms and even if she couldn't forgive them now, she understood in his totality, he was more than the sum of his parts.

**Author's Note:**

> I've apologized in private to a few people for leaving this story unfinished. When it was originally posted to the kink_meme back in October, I fully intended to add another bit. But you know what? I think it does come to a natural end, so I'm calling it done. I'm also calling it done because there is a third version -- a remix if you like (can you remix your own work? I hope so, because I have) -- set post-407, where the setting is exactly the same, but with the last bit of canon incorporated. Which actually doesn't actually change all that much storywise since Malcolm's fate was pretty much in the post when he said _I'm finished anyway_ in 406. Version 3 is longer, more detailed, has more Julius being both worried and pragmatic, and _finally finally finally_ gets Malcolm and Nicola alone in a room together. Also, I'm still writing it.


End file.
